Shuttle Discovery retires with Washington flypast

BBC News ^ | 4/17/12 | BBC

[NormsRevenge]

One of Nasa's retired space shuttles has made a dramatic flypast over the centre of the US capital on the way to its final resting place in a museum.

Discovery flew over the monuments along the National Mall in Washington DC at about 10:00 EST (14:00 GMT).

Piggy-backing on a modified Boeing 747, Discovery was flying at an altitude of about 1,500ft (457m), Nasa said.

The shuttle programme ended in 2011. Discovery will be on show at the Air and Space Museum in Virginia.

After circling four times over the Washington Monument, and passing the National Mall over Capitol Hill, the shuttle landed at Dulles Airport, a few miles outside Washington DC.

From there it will be towed to the nearby Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where it will be on permanent display.

During the flypast, onlookers lined the roofs of the capital's buildings and the route to the airport, wanting to catch a glimpse of the shuttle.

Earlier, crowds of onlookers gathered along the Florida shoreline as dawn broke on Tuesday to see the shuttle take off from Kennedy Space Center.

Cheers broke out from the estimated 2,000-strong crowd as the aircraft left the runway, the Associated Press reported.

Dozens of former shuttle workers and Nasa veterans were reported to be among the onlookers.

Discovery then passed low over a packed beach and made one final turn back over the runway at the space complex before climbing towards a cruising altitude.

The aircraft's fuselage was illuminated by the early Florida sunshine for moments before it headed out of sight on its journey up the East Coast.

[ArrogantBustard]

I saw it twice from where I was ... I found the experience profoundly depressing.

[EHC Southern Pride]

My husband and two year old daughter were at the Udvar Hazy Museum in Chantilly, VA (right next to Dulles Airport) early this morning to see the fly over. It flew over the first time at about 9:30am, then it did the DC fly over. About an hour later it did two more low and slow fly overs by the museum; it was amazing to see. Everyone cheered at each fly over. I got some pretty awesome pictures (I’d post them but have no idea how). Looking forward to going back on Thursday for the nose to nose ‘meeting’ of Enterprise and Discovery prior to Enterprise’s move to NY.

[newnhdad]

woke the kids up early this AM to catch the take-off. The first time I saw the shuttle transported on a 747 was on a 13 inch B&W TV with an antennae. Now we watched it on a 58 inch plasma. I had to take my wife to Dulles and we got stuck in the mess around the Udvar Hazy and the airport. There were thousands and thousands of people stopped EVERYWHERE.. that never happens.
despite the complacency, people were proud of the program and this SOB shut it down. Why, so he can buy a few more votes with more welfare entitlements.

Now I have to explain to my kids that thanks to Obama, the dream of being an astronaut is all but gone. But becoming a community organizer and organizing a community that kills young men by the bushel is the new dream job.
Now NASA is a mulsim outreach program with a side job of taking temperature readings for the globull warming agenda while the russians take the lead in space.

What a disgrace.

[NormsRevenge]

Irony abounds.. image is not photochopped.. lol

I had a dream once that included an obelisk or skyscraper maybe, a plane teetering on top of it with me on it .. hmmmm .. no giant ape tho. whew. It sure had me going.. One of those things you never forget..

[ace2u_in_MD]

You are aware that it was GWB who canceled the shuttle program? And that Constellation was never properly funded?

Yes it is sad that the shuttles are now “Hanger Queens”, but put blame where blame belongs in this case...

[af_vet_rr]

I cried today thinking the very same think.

Barack Obama is the biggest mistake ever voted into any office in this country. If there was a poster boy for abortion, it should be Barack Hussein Obama.

You should have been crying back in 2004. In January of 2004, George W. Bush issued a directive to end Shuttle flights in I think 2010. This was around the time he started talking up Orion/Constellation. Congress squeaked in one or two more Shuttle flights through appropriations.

Back in 2004, a lot of FReepers were questioning the wisdom of assigning an end date to the Shuttle program when we didn't even have a replacement truly in the works.

[rarestia]

I WAS upset back in 2004. However, there were plans for a new category of launch and exploration vehicles. Money should’ve been appropriated to NASA for future shuttles, rovers, space exploration in general.

I’m not upset directly at Obama for the close of our manned exploration of space, I’m directly upset at Congress for scuttling appropriations. However, it is directly Obama’s fault for all of the BS he’s brought about with social this and welfare that, and Congress was left with little choice but to scuttle the shuttle in order to make ends meet.

If our tax dollars were plentiful and social programs nil, space exploration would be a natural and necessary fit for us considering our defense and communication needs. Considering, however, that Obama is drastically destroying our military and attempting to reign in and control major media, it’s really not necessary to guess as to fault for the destruction of America’s space program: it’s Obama’s fault.

[af_vet_rr]

I WAS upset back in 2004. However, there were plans for a new category of launch and exploration vehicles. Money should’ve been appropriated to NASA for future shuttles, rovers, space exploration in general.

I agree with you. When this was all being done in 2004, with an end date of 2010-2011, I have no doubt whatsoever that some of those behind this were not as concerned as they should have been. Not just President Bush, but more so the people in the Bush administration and Congress whose responsibility it was to work out replacements. When you are doing something in 2004, and you have 6 years before the results are realized, and most likely you won't be in the same job (unless your in Congress), it's very easy to just blow it off as somebody else's problem, especially if other issues come up that take up all of your time.

NASA was left hanging in the breeze and was ripe for Obama and the liberals in Congress to come in and neuter it. Don't forget that in 2004, Republicans were in charge of Congress. When Bush was signing off on this directive, and Congress was talking about a replacement, they all thought that 2010 there would be a Republican President and a Republican Congress. That all fell apart, and it didn't take much for NASA to be crippled and reliant upon the Russians.

There is some hope with private space companies. I'm still shocked that Obama allowed NASA to give Space-X approval to service the ISS. I wonder if he'll allow them to carry out manned flights, since that is what Space-X ultimately wants to do.